Tag: The 2010’s
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Rainbow Kitten Surprise ‘RKS’ (2015)
Rainbow Kitten Surprise was quite the surprise (yes, pun intended) for me when I flipped on their album RKS yesterday. It was suggested to me by someone in January when I was collecting album recommendations for my one album per day listening project and ended up on a spreadsheet unattributed. Put another way, I have…
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Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats ‘Self-Titled’ (2015)
I’ve mentioned before my love for Nathaniel Rateliff and his booming baritone and why it’s made him one of my most beloved contemporary singers. His solo album And It’s Still Alright from 2020 was a pivotal pandemic album for me that helped get through all the wild ass confusion that swallowed us all during that…
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James Bay ‘Chaos And The Calm’ (2014)
James Bay’s Chaos And The Calm was seemingly everywhere during the mid 2010’s– his husky emotive voice, dreamy clean guitars, and comfortably simple arrangements made him a household name, especially once “Hold Back The River” hit radio airwaves and launched him into a full blown superstar at the age of 24 years old. Bay isn’t…
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The War and Treaty ‘Healing Tide’ (2018)
The War and Treaty is a a wife-husband duo comprised of Tanya Trotter and Michael Trotter Jr. Their debut album Healing Tide is a wonderful throwback to traditional country music with elements of Memphis soul and blues music blended into their sound. The vocal performance of Tanya and Michael is the true highlight of this…
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Maggie Rogers ‘Heard It In A Past Life’ (2019)
Just about everybody and their mother has seen the video of Maggie Rogers sitting down with Pharrell Williams and listening to her song “Alaska”. Rogers was a college music student at the time, Pharrell was invited to the class to critique and offer feedback, and after listening to the track he simply says “Wow” and…
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Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings ‘Soul of a Woman’ (2017)
The youngest of six children, Sharon Jones was an American soul singer from Brooklyn. Throughout her life she spent a lot of time in the gospel choir at church and did some session work for various artists but never gained any real traction in her music career, leading her to jobs like serving as a…
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The Teskey Brothers ‘Run Home Slow’ (2019)
If I had to use one word to describe The Teskey Brothers 2019 album Run Home Slow? Timeless. Bringing together soul, Americana, and gospel blues in the style of Otis Redding has been done once over throughout the course of music history, but rarely has it sounded so damn smooth from a contemporary band. Much…
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Midland ‘Let It Roll’ (2019)
There are few country artists today who are able to expertly walk the line between contemporary appeal and old-school roots. It’s a delicate balance to strike between popularity and parody. Midland is one of those bands, the best at playing that game in 2023, and maybe the only country music act who makes me feel…
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Dan + Shay ‘Dan + Shay’ (2018)
Dan + Shay is the pinnacle of modern country pop. Lush vocal arrangements transposed over expertly manicured production, with nary a note out of place. It’s effective as hell at being excellent background music that’s easy to listen to and just frankly beautiful in the most inoffensive way. It’s perfect coffee house ambiance music. “Tequila”…
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BTS ‘Love Yourself 轉 Tear’ (2018)
BTS is the largest boy band in the entire world, one of South Korea’s largest exports, have spoken at the United Nations General Assembly three times, and was the first non-English speaking act to sell out concerts at the fabled Wembley Stadium in London and Rose Bowl in California. In other words, they’re absolutely massive…
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Cardi B ‘Invasion of Privacy’ (2018)
A few months back we talked about how Lil’ Kim paved the way for female empowerment in the largely male-dominated world of hip hop, and it’s clear from the outset that Cardi B is an obvious benefactor of Lil’ Kim’s trailblazing ways. Much like Lil’ Kim, Cardi B combines an undeniably dynamic vocal flow alongside…
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Katy Perry ‘Teenage Dream’ (2010)
No one does massive effervescent pop quite like Katy Perry, and no album perfectly encapsulates the shiny bubblegum aesthetic of her prolific career better than 2010’s Teenage Dream. Is it vain, juvenile, and all a bit mindless? Absolutely. But it’s also an absolute pop masterpiece, filled with smash hits that are simply impossible to get…
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Florida Georgia Line ‘Anything Goes’ (2014)
I have pangs of self-loathing every time I listen to Florida Georgia Line for the very simple reason that intellectually I understand what they’re doing is just tapping into sounds that don’t challenge my brain at all, but emotionally I can’t help getting amped up and start singing along every time one of those big…
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White Reaper ‘You Deserve Love’ (2019)
I absolutely love garage rock. The fuzziness of the guitars, the boom-boom-pop of the drums, the chuggy bass lines, the overdriven vocals, the upscale lo-fi ness of it all. Crafting a great garage rock song is a whole helluva lot harder than it actually looks— there’s a fine line to walk in both recording and…
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Justin Townes Earle ‘Kids in the Street’ (2017)
Americana has been having somewhat of a renaissance in the past decade or so, both in pop culture as well as in popular music, and the late Justin Townes Earle was a beloved figure in that sphere of the world. He possessed an unrelenting honest approach to the craft of songwriting that both celebrated the…
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Kavinsky ‘OutRun’ (2013)
Kavinsky is a French electronica producer which is important in that it’s very clear from the jump that this album is produced overseas. European electronica has a very distinct style compared to American electronica in a couple of different ways, the most telling to my ear in that it’s a little cheesy and oftentimes has…
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The Wonder Years ‘The Greatest Generation’ (2013)
Pop punk has been having a moment in the past few years, experiencing a resurgence since it lorded over the pop music culture in the early 2000’s. And Pennsylvania’s The Wonder Years, who have been carrying the torch since the late aughts, are a huge part of that resurgence. It’s sort of funny to think…
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Mr. Jukes ‘God First’ (2017)
Inspired by a trip around the world that began with a two-week stay in the hold of a cargo ship (yes, really), Jack Steadman delights in his debut album God First. After a mutual hiatus of his longtime band, the Bombay Bicycle Club frontman Steadman the festival-anthem indie rock focus and tapped into the classic…
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Vulfpeck ‘The Beautiful Game’ (2016)
A throwback to the early era of funk with massive rhythm sections, Vulfpeck is a concept band that plays with the idea of what a German band would sound like if they did a rendition of American funk music. It’s a vibe. Vulfpeck first rose to prominence in 2014 with Sleepify, an album with 10…
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Minus the Bear ‘Omni’ (2010)
Minus the Bear’s alternative prog rock bonafides had been well established by the time 2010’s Omni was released. As a high schooler I burned up their debut album Highly Refined Pirates, which featured math rock staples such as “Monkey!!!Knife!!!Fight!!!” and “Absinthe Party At The Fly Honey Warehouse”. These were the days when alternative indie bands…
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Matt Corby ‘Rainbow Valley’ (2018)
Matt Corby’s Rainbow Valley is loaded with atmospheric sheen that’s smoother than a can of peanut butter. Recorded in Corby’s home studio on a five-acre plot in Byron Bay, Australia, Rainbow Valley is a wide-ranging musical journey into the spacey world of Indie R&B. The backing tracks feature an impressively set of instruments all played…
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Sound City ‘Real To Reel’ (2013)
Ed. Note: Welcome to Sound City week here at Music of Matthew dot com! This week we’ll be covering some notable albums recorded at the legendary Sound City studio in Los Angeles, which was covered in great detail in Dave Grohl’s excellent 2013 documentary “Sound City”. To kick off Sound City week we’re starting with…
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Billy Strings ‘Home’ (2019)
Billy Strings is a helluva guitar player and Home is a helluva guitar album that takes you on a whirlwind journey through the world of bluegrass. There are songs that march straight on the traditional path (“Taking Water”), songs that venture into the weeds with a progressive bounce to their gait (“Way From The Mire”),…
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Wye Oak ‘Civilian’ (2011)
There’s something desperately lonely about Wye Oak’s 2011 effoort Civilian, from the pensive guitars, moody vocal melodies, and aggressively driven percussion. Lead vocalist Jenn Wasner never lets a good minor key vocal melody go to waste, and her dark indie folk brand of songwriting is as immediately recognizable as it is visceral. The whole thing…
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Khalid ‘American Teen’ (2017)
Khalid’s American Teen nestles itself comfortably into a space somewhere between modern pop and Indie shoegaze, trotting through its 51-minute runtime at a measured pace. The vocals, guitar, and 80’s influenced synths are the focus here– Khalid doesn’t take a whole lot of risks on this album, opting to churn out a cohesive auditory experience…
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The Menzingers ‘After The Party’ (2017)
Beyond the east coast Bruce Springsteen storytelling chops, rollicking Les Pauls plugged into Marshall amps, and gritty vocal hooks, what I appreciate most about The Menzingers’ After The Party is how perfectly they capture the feeling of being an adult in your 30’s who has aged out of the punk scene but still appreciate the…
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Punk Goes… ‘Pop Volume 4’ (2011)
The “Punk Goes…” series has been a mainstay in punk rock since the early 2000’s and to this day I remember how impactful it was for me when I was 16 years old. I graduated HS in the class of 2006, and while original music absolutely appealed to me, hearing a punk band play a…
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Drake ‘Scorpion’ (2018)
There’s been no larger mainstream figure in hip-hop over the past decade than Drake. He almost singlehandedly dominated the commercial charts in the 2010’s, appealing to hardcore hip-hop fans, grandmothers, and everyone else in between. Time will tell how well Drake’s prolific output ages in the coming decades compared to some of his contemporaries (see:…
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Manchester Orchestra ‘A Black Mile To The Surface’ (2017)
Initially a part of the mainstream emo/alternative rock wave in the early 2000’s with bands like Brand New and Taking Back Sunday, Manchester Orchestra has hung around long enough (and been bold enough) to take on more evolved sonic stylings as their career has progressed. A Black Mile To The Surface effectively sounds like the…
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Rhye ‘Woman’ (2013)
Rhye burst onto the scene in 2013 and immediately grabbed me with the airy tenderness of vocalist Mike Milosh’s vocals. At the time I was literally completely unaware the singer on Woman was, quite literally, not actually in fact a woman. Whether it was the relative secrecy behind the band at the time or the…
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Old Dominion ‘Happy Endings’ (2017)
Good country music has a tight narrative structure that tells a compelling story with a satisfying conclusion. Great country music has a tight narrative structure that tells a compelling story with a satisfying conclusion, but (and this is important) at some point the song introduces a pattern interrupt along the way. This is the bucket…
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alt-J ‘An Awesome Wave’ (2012)
I was fresh out of college and into the working world when An Awesome Wave came out in 2012 and can still vividly remember this album encapsulating my feelings at the time– wistful nostalgia for friends left behind and the hope of what life had in store. Listening ten years later, there’s still something about…
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Iron Chic ‘Not Like This’ (2010)
Some bands are so earnest and straight from the heart it makes it impossible not to pay attention to them. Iron Chic is that kind of band. Not Like This is that kind of album. Punk music does “earnesty” better than any other genre. I think that stems from the low barrier of entry, which…
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Solange ‘A Seat at the Table’ (2016)
Solange’s A Seat at the Table is a terrific album. Much like Thursday’s War All The Time, this is an album meant to be experienced from front to back, an art piece that is more than the sum of its parts. Throughout A Seat at the Table Solange invites us into her home to discuss…
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Bruno Mars ’24K Magic’ (2016)
If this album doesn’t make you want to get up out of your seat, throw your hands in the air, and bust out dancing you’ve lost an appreciation for things that make life worth living. I’m serious. If you don’t smile at least once while listening to the album we can’t be friends. 24K Magic…
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Eric Church ‘Chief’ (2011)
Blending together traditional country music arrangements with a dash of rock and roll, Eric Church’s Chief is an adequately solid country album. In my mid-20’s this album meant a lot to me, speaking to my long-lasting love for rock as well as my ever-growing appreciation for country music. As the years have gone by I…
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